Burger of the Month Specials: Nov. 2015

Winners, winners, turkey dinners. It’s November so seeing a few burger bars offer gussied up turkey burgers as their specials is to be expected. But this year, turkey burgers are everywhere: 22 of the 56 November Burger of the Month specials listed here are variations on the Thanksgiving-on-a-bun idea.

Drake’s The Gobbler

And by everywhere I mean Europe and Asia, too. I don’t recall Pilgrims landing in Copenhagen, Denmark, but The Bronx Burger Bar there is featuring a Thanksgiving Burger (a turkey patty with house-made cranberry sauce, mayo, lettuce, tomato and cucumber). The version at Brgr: The Burger Project, Manila, The Philippines, is somewhat different: Turkey patty, pumpkin, cranberry sauce, Cheddar cheese and lettuce on an oatmeal bun.

Sweet potatoes used to be a Thanksgiving–only dish, at least in my house. But sweet potato fries are popular enough to be piled on top of the turkey patty at several burger joints. A good example is The Gobbler Burger at Drake’s, in Franklin, Tenn.: It’s an all-natural ground turkey patty topped with melted Swiss, smoky bacon and waffle-cut sweet potato fries on a toasted bun with cranberry mayo. At Burger 25 in Toms River, N.J., the Thanksgiving Burger gets sweet potatoes themselves as a topping.

Flip Burger Boutique’s Turkey Dinner Burger

And how do you handle the cranberries? You can go old-school and just layer some cranberry sauce on the turkey patty as Bucket List Burgers in Riverside, Calif., does (along with turkey stuffing, sage aïoli, crispy sweet potato fries and honey mustard on brioche). But there are other options. Social Burger in Vienna, Va., opts for house-made cranberry-jalapeňo jelly. Flip Burger Boutique in Atlanta uses candied cranberry mayo, while Flip Side in Ohio tops the turkey with cranberry chutney.

And then there’s The Oinkster in Los Angeles, which acknowledges the recent passing of Chef Paul Prudhomme by making a burger version of the “turducken,” which he created. The Oinkster’s Turkducken Burger brings together duck pastrami, deep-fried chicken breast and a seasoned turkey patty topped with cherry gastrique, rosemary-garlic relish and mayo on a potato bun.

The Oinkster’s Turducken Burger

There are several non-turkey November specials that deserve a mention, too. The Pennsylvania Dutch Burger at 5 Star Burgers in St. Louis is one. That’s an Angus beef patty with fried scrapple, a sunny-side-up egg, and caramelized onion gravy on butter toasted brioche. Another is the Big Lebowski at Burger 55 in Penicton, B.C., which starts with bison Salisbury steak. A water buffalo patty is the base for The B.O.M.B. Burger at Burger Revolution in Belleville, Ont.

The Byron Hamburgers chain in the UK jumps ahead to the next holiday with the Father Cheesemas burger that it will unveil next week. It’s promising “a towering tribute to festive indulgence.” And a tip of the hat to BOBO Social in London for creating its first Dessert Burger. It starts with a Nutella patty and adds a meringue fried egg, kiwi and strawberry “lettuce and tomato” on a buttermilk bun. You gotta see it.

To see the Dessert Burger and many more of the 57 November Burger of the Month Specials, go here. Ideas await.